Digitization is an increasingly important subject within the archival profession, especially as our society grows more and more dependent on digital assets. People generally expect everything to be available to them online no matter the time or place, otherwise the material might as well not exist. When it comes to preserving and making our cultural heritage available through digitization this poses an issue. Digitization takes time and requires resources, which forces the archives to decide which material to digitize, on what grounds and how to best make the digital material accessible. This essay explores the digitization of our cultural heritage through the lens of value theory. By examining what type of materials the archives prioritize for digitization, why, and how they utilize the digitized material we can observe the values and principles these approaches stem from. The study is conducted by using content analysis to examine documents such as annual reports, budget documentation and digitization strategies from two archival organizations during the time periods 2010–2015 and 2020–2024. The results show that the choices the archives make regarding what to digitize are based largely on preservation, demand and research requests. Both organizations also view digitization as a key element to working in alignment with democratic values. The approaches to this varied however as one organization focused more on streamlining their organization through digitization, while the other focused more on accessibility and spreading knowledge through their digitized materials.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-532663 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Petersén, Frida |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för ABM |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Uppsatser inom arkivvetenskap, 1651-6087 ; 233 |
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